Classical Music

Arts & Entertainment - SEASON PREVIEW - Best bets

August 29, 1999|By Steven Brown, Sentinel Classical Music Critic

When the Montreal Symphony Orchestra returns to Orlando Feb. 27, it will play some of the music that made it famous. The orchestra's lucid and vital recordings of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel are what first won it admirers, and both composers will show up on its Festival of Orchestras concert. Conductor Charles Dutoit will lead his group in Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and Ravel's La Mer and La Valse. And two colorful Russian works - Dmitri Shostakovich's Festive Overture and Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 - will also give the orchestra opportunities to carry on with dash.